Loser Elite
by sinemoras09
Summary: It isn't love at first sight. Obito/Rin. AU. Fluff.


_Author's note: Happy AU version of the fic, "Small," where an injured Obito still stays in Konoha. It was so depressing, I had to write fix-it fic to make myself feel better :x_ _I guess you could call this a remix fic, or an AU of an AU. Obviously a few scenes were cribbed from that first fic, but I re-mixed them to fit in here :) Mostly I just wanted to write a fic where Obito gets a lot of hugs XD_

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1.

He's fidgeting with his chopsticks. Which is quite a feat in itself, considering he only has one hand, and that he is not left-handed. Rin watches, carefully holding her teacup, as every single emotion known to man seems to parade across Obito's face.

"It's not that I don't like you," Rin says, slowly. "It's just I don't like you _in that way. _It's nothing personal."

"Yeah." His mouth twists: devastation, embarrassment, hurt, a manful attempt not to cry. "Yeah."

"Obito, don't." Rin reaches across the table, catching his wrist and pressing the chopsticks against his bowl. She catches his eyes-or rather, _eye_, singular, which is red and swollen, the other one closed after having severed the muscle that lifted his left eyelid-and grips his wrist, reassuringly.

"There are lots of girls," Rin says. "Lots of girls who'd really like to go out with you."

"Yeah." He nods quickly. "Yeah. Lots of girls."

"I mean...you're funny," Rin says. "And you're not bad looking. I mean-" and she catches the scars on his face, "Maybe those scars will fade."

"It's okay," Obito says. He pulls his goggles on. "I was just joking. I don't really feel that way-"

"Obito-"

"No, it's okay." He smiles. "We're friends. I'm happy that you're my friend."

"Obito."

"I need to go," Obito says, and he turns, shoving his one hand in his pocket and moving quickly, leaving a bewildered Rin sitting alone at the table.

xXx

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The first time Rin sees Obito, he's that loud, annoying kid picking fights with the bigger boys hanging out at the corner.

At eight-years-old, Rin knows who's the runt of the litter, who's the most awkward and who is probably used to blustering his way through it. When Obito yells, it has the same effect as a drop-kick dog yapping at wolves, and the end result is pretty much the same.

Later, after the throng of genin boys stop rushing toward the commotion by the jungle gym and after the shouts of "Fight! Fight! Fight!" die down, it isn't long before the Uchiha kid is body-slammed into the nearest swingset; it's not until one of their teachers manage to push through that the fight breaks up, and Rin watches, eyes glued to the trainwreck of a classmate she had just met a few hours earlier.

Everyone in their class knows that Obito is an Uchiha. Other than the Uchiha crest and the Uchiha coloring and the Uchiha name written in felt-tipped pen on the back of his backpack, Obito makes it known, loudly and with vigor, that he is an elite, special, a ninja above all else.

It's not that Obito doesn't have friends, exactly: it's just that the Uchiha avoid him, because he clearly sucks and he would bring down their reputation, while the non-Uchiha are intimidated by him: when they get to know him, they get annoyed by him, and tell him bluntly so.

"I dare you to go talk to him," Anko says, because she is evil like that and Rin is staring at her, wide-eyed and flustered.

"_Why_?"

"Because he's making moon-eyes at you," Anko says, and as soon as Rin turns her head the kid quickly looks away, flushed and looking at everywhere else but at her.

Training goes. Rin learns her katas and jutsus and how to make hand seals and kage bunshin while Obito mostly just flounders, and whenever he screws up or blows a jutsu or generally fails in an epic and cringe-worthy fashion, he compensates by becoming even louder and more indignant, at one point picking a fight with Gai before summarily getting curb-stomped into the ground.

Later, after Obito is ushered to the hospital and Gai is given a stern talking-to (much to Gai's bewildered protestations, because it was just youth's sweet passion! It could not be helped!), Kakashi just sniffs and kind of rolls his eyes.

"He got really hurt," Rin says, and Kakashi just kind of shrugs, because it's interrupting his training and he has better things to be worrying about. "C'mon. You know Gai went a little hard."

"Then he shouldn't have challenged him," Kakashi says, and the other kids nod, rolling their eyes.

Later, while the rest of her classmates roll their eyes and mutter things like "idiot," and "serves him right," Rin goes up to him and calmly asks, because she's genuinely curious and because what he does just doesn't make any sense, why does he pick all those fights when he knows he's just going to lose?

"Is that what you think of me?" Obito says, and he sounds so sad and depressed, Rin decides to just let it go.

xXx

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"You're horrible," Kurenai says, after Rin sat deflated on the bench by the training grounds, Asuma chucking kunai and Gai running laps around the perimeter. "He saved your life! So what if he wants to take you out to dinner? Just give him a chance."

"It's just..." and Rin frowns, looking out at Gai and Asuma sparring, happily. "He's like a goofy little brother. And I don't feel that way about him."

"He's older than you by a month."

"Ugh," Rin says, and she sags over her knees. "He's my friend and now I feel horrible! But I can't help it! He's just so weird."

"He's sweet," Kurenai says. "And he really likes you! You should see the way he looks at you. It's like he's giving you kissy faces, seriously."

"If you like him so much, why don't you date him?" Rin says.

Kurenai wrinkles her nose.

A few hours pass. Rin half-heartedly practices a few katas and watches as Kurenai practices her genjutsu, which is almost as good as any Uchiha's (which meant she was better than Obito by a longshot, but Obito had the Sharingan now, so maybe that would change), when Kakashi enters the field.

Rin perks up. Ever since the incident at the bridge, Kakashi was even more taciturn and sullen than usual, bandaging up his sharingan and sulking by himself. Rin was not an experienced medic, and the patch job she did transplanting the eye had made it such that it was impossible to re-implant it back - not that Obito wanted it. "It was a gift!" Obito said, as the throngs of Uchiha elders stared and glared at him. "He's better at using it than I am, anyway!" and Rin had all but face-palmed herself, trying to contain her second-hand embarrassment.

"Kakashi!" Kurenai says, and a throng of girls squeal, rushing toward him. "Kakashi! Over here!"

"Tell us about the bridge!"

"Tell us about how you saved Obito's life!"

"You're a hero, Kakashi!"

"Hi, Kakashi," Rin says, and Kakashi stares.

She is going to do it. Rin twists the envelope in her hand - a love letter, handwritten and sprayed with perfume. All week she had been working up the nerve to confess, which had been temporarily derailed when Obito shoved his way in front of her, telling her he loved her and he wanted to marry her and _oh-no-I-shouldn't-have-said-that, _all in one breathless sentence. Rin frowns, trying to push it from her mind. She is going to confess to Kakashi. She loves Kakashi. She takes the envelope, and takes a deep breath.

"What's this?" Kakashi says, and the look he has is mildly irritated.

"A love letter," Rin says, and Kakashi sighs, tragically.

"If you have that much time to think about this," Kakashi says, and he hands the letter back to her, "Then you should probably spend more time to train."

"Kakashi-"

"Did you talk to Obito?" Kakashi says. Rin glares.

"Obito has nothing to do with this," Rin says. "I don't want you to guilt trip me! I like you," Rin says, but Kakashi stares at her, witheringly.

"He saved your life," Kakashi says, and Rin glares at him, embarrassment quickly flaring into outraged anger. "Maybe you should do him the courtesy of giving him a chance."

And then Kakashi ignores her, pulling his forehead protector more firmly over his eye.

She mulls over it. Complains to Kurenai and continues to be indignant about it, until Kurenai astutely points out that she is to Kakashi as Obito is to Rin, and pretty soon Rin decides finally to give Obito a chance.

xXx

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She finds him sitting by the river. He had been sitting there every day ever since Rin had rejected him, limping slowly to the riverbank after physical therapy. Now the sun is beginning to set, and Rin watches as Obito absently fingers a smooth skipping stone, frowning to himself before giving it an experimental toss across the water.

It sinks. It doesn't even skip once.

Typical.

He is too busy moping to notice when Rin sneaks up behind him, sitting heavily on the grass and looking out into the sunset.

"Hey," Rin says, and Obito jumps, startled.

"Rin."

"I thought I'd find you here," Rin says, and Obito sits straight upright, every nerve in his body on high alert. "Geez, calm down. I'm not gonna bite."

"What are you doing here?" Obito says.

"I thought we'd go get ice cream," Rin says, and Obito stares at her, confused.

"Ice cream?"

"You like ice cream, right?"

Obito looks at her. "Um." She watches as he licks his lips. "No?"

"Oh c'mon," Rin says, and she grabs him by the arm.

She tells him how she got dumped by Kakashi. Obito teeters precariously on his stool, brow furrowed, as if trying to decide if this was a good thing or not. "And he didn't give me a chance," Rin says. "So...I thought I'd give you one. A chance, I mean," Rin says, and her hands flies to her mouth.

"Wow, that sounds awful, doesn't it?" Rin says, and Obito just stares at her, because girls as a rule confuse him and Rin probably confused him even more.

"I like you," Rin says, and Obito starts to perk up. "I mean...people date to see if they like the other person, right? And we already like each other as friends. So...why not?"

"But...I thought you said you _didn't _like me?" Obito says. He seems really confused.

They walk home in silence. Rin walks with her eyes fixed forward, feeling guilty and vaguely sick to her stomach that maybe she's using Obito to get over Kakashi, which probably isn't very nice and the exact opposite of what Obito probably would want.

"I don't mind," Obito says, and it startles her, as if he had been reading her mind. "I mean, I know you really like Kakashi, and if he changed his mind, I'd be really happy for you. Even if you want to be with me while you wait. We're friends, right?"

Rin looks at him. The scabs on the side of his face were starting to peel, and his right sleeve flaps uselessly, tied in a knot below the stump of his right arm.

And maybe it's the way he's looking at her, which is sad and resigned but also hopeful, because he loved her and he was happy just spending time with her, and Rin realizes he had always looked at her like that. She steps close and squeezes his hand.

"I treated you like crap," Rin says, and Obito looks up at her, surprised. "I don't want to sit and wait for Kakashi. I want to be with you."

And the smile he gives her is the biggest she'd ever seen.

xXx

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2.

Obito likes giving hugs. At first he was shy, blushing with even the barest brush of her hand, but as the months passed, he warmed up to her, and now he hugged her every chance he got: at the training grounds, walking back from training. At the end of his physical therapy, where Rin would sometimes visit. "Rin!" Obito says. He limps toward her, his physical therapists following after him. "You came!"

"Obito." She hugs him and his ears turned red. "What's this?"

"Oh! It's my physical therapy! It's helping me get stronger." Obito is smiling. Rin looks at the equipment, curiously.

She ends up spending more time chatting with the physical therapists than talking to him; it isn't until she catches Obito sulking a little bit that she laughs and hugs him, hard.

"Jealous?" Rin says, and Obito mumbles, "Yeah," and she kisses him on the cheek, as a small reward.

xXx

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The look on Obito's face is unmistakable. He's doing a good job of disguising it, but Rin had known him long enough to recognize it: hurt and confusion and surprise. His mouth opens, then closes again, before he swallows, trying to compose himself.

"Never?" Obito says, and the doctor looks at him, sympathetically.

"You have one eye," the doctor says. "You only have one arm."

"But I work hard," Obito says. "I have the sharingan now, I can train, I can-"

"You're unfit," the doctor says, gently. "Son. I know how important being a shinobi is for you. But as it stands right now, in the physical condition that you're in, that would be next to impossible."

Rin glances back at him. Obito is blinking, hard.

She find him at the riverbank. She sits gingerly beside him, watching as he rests his chin on his knees.

"It's okay," Obito says finally. "I don't have to be a shinobi. There's lots of things I'm good at. I'm good at drawing," Obito says. "I only have one eye now, so I don't have to worry about depth perception, and...and I'm good at...good at skipping stones-" and he tosses a stone into the water. It sinks, pathetically. "I mean, not all the time, good, but I can use my left hand now, and not everyone is ambidextrous. I mean, if I had another arm, I would be. And there's...there's lots of things I could do, and-"

"Obito," Rin says, and his face crumbles. She leans against him, rubbing his shoulder and saying nothing when he starts to cry.

xXx

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3.

He lives just on the outskirts of the Uchiha quarter. It takes a little bit to visit him - Obito lives so far out, he's practically in the forests by the periphery - and when Rin comes nearer, she can hear it: little kids making fun of him, laughing and taunting.

"Half-man Obito, nobody likes you! Why don't you just go and leave."

"Shut up," Obito says, and the kids taunt him more.

"You're not even an Uchiha! You're a fake Uchiha! You don't even have a sharingan!"

"Yeah, well at least I have a girlfriend!" Obito says, and the retort is so embarrassingly stupid, Rin has to roll her eyes.

xXx

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"You should move to the civilian quarter of the village," Rin says. They're cuddled up on his couch, Rin resting her cheek against the stump on his shoulder, letting her fingers trail up his stomach, idly. "I mean, they might think you're a cripple and a ton of dead weight, but you can still work with the civilians. I mean, you're stronger than them. Literally."

"I can't," Obito says. Rin frowns and shifts, looking up at him from on top of his chest. "It's politics. I still have a bloodline limit, even if I can't really use it."

"I don't see why it matters," Rin says, and Obito blushes, then frowns.

"They probably think someone could take it," Obito says, and she knows how much it embarrasses him, having to admit he can't protect himself like this. She drops a small kiss against the side of his lip, letting her thumb graze the side of his face.

"I'll protect you," Rin says, quietly. Her thumb catches the raised edge of his scars, and he looks up at her, searching her eyes.

She learns the sealing jutsu from Hinata. The same seal that marks the members of the Branch house, it would seal away Obito's sharingan at the time of his death, or if anyone else tries to pluck out his eye.

"You trust me, right?" Rin says. Obito looks up at her and nods.

Pain. It's worse than when she took out his left eye, because it's longer, because he doesn't have the two-ton boulder to distract him. But when it's over the Uchiha nod and Obito finally gets permission, and the two of them leave, packing their bags and moving, shoulder to shoulder.

xXx

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4.

He can't stop kissing her. He's smiling when he does it, kissing her eyes and mouth and throat and smiling, large and wide. "Obito," Rin says, and he's smiling against her mouth, his one hand sliding up inside her blouse. "Obito, that tickles! What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Obito says. Fingers pluck the clasp to her bra and Rin squeals, feeling him kiss the curve of her shoulder.

It's dark in their bedroom. Rin breathes deeply, almost asleep, when Obito shifts, stroking her hair.

"Hey, Rin?" he says. She squeezes her eyes and exhales, stretching beneath him.

"Hmm?"

"I love you," Obito says, and the look he gives her is so serious, it makes Rin giggle, touching his face.

"Love you too," Rin says, and he smiles, kissing her gently.

He starts to fall asleep. The scarred side of his face is pressed flush against the space between her chin and her chest, and Rin kisses the top of his scalp, tired and happy. He shifts, and she lets her arm drape across his waist, fingers splayed outward. A flattened palm unfurling, tracing the grain of old scars, and the muscle beneath warm skin.

end.


End file.
